Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and commend Deputy Catherine Murphy on introducing it. Anything that keeps this item on the agenda is to be welcomed as it opens up discussion on it.

The work of Friday sittings falls somewhere between the collegiate work we do in committee and the more adversarial work on the floor of the House during the week. In the last Dáil, both the Minister and I were members of the Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security. It was called that for a particular reason as both issues are inextricably linked. With that in mind, we produced draft legislation, including the heads of a climate change Bill. The latter legislation was prepared by my then constituency colleague, the former Deputy Liz McManus. We also produced a foreshore licence Bill to deal specifically with offshore wind energy and allow it to be expedited in a more timely fashion. It was considered that there were too many constraints on the development of such energy projects at the time. We also produced a marine Bill along the lines of what was produced in the House of Commons. To be fair to the last Administration, it did intend to bring out its own climate change legislation but events superseded it and time ran out. It is not that climate change legislation was not planned, but it has not been produced to date.

Regardless of whether climate change was an issue, we must look to the future and consider how we will provide food and energy for a global population that is forecast to grow by approximately 2 billion in the next 40 years. Climate change is an issue, however. It is hard to get away from the evidence that mankind's lifestyle over the past 100 years has put extra pressure on the climate as well as on the earth's finite resources. If we wear this planet out we cannot move to another one, so we must face challenges, including future production of food, water and fuel.

There are things we will have to change no matter what else happens, regardless of climate change. The climate change targets are binding up to 2020, although we have hit some of them due to very slow economic growth. If, as we all hope, our economic fortunes improve, the knock-on effect may be that some of those climate change targets will become more of a challenge. Therefore, we must examine the matter in that context.

Part of this will pertain to our own lifestyle and lifestyle expectations and we will be obliged to manage that. At one of the aforementioned meetings, we were asked the provocative-sounding question as to whether birth control should be introduced in African nations. Justin Kilcullen, who was present, observed that the carbon emissions of people on the continent of Africa were one twentieth and one fortieth of the equivalent emissions of people in Europe and the United States, respectively. He then challenged us by asking where birth control should be introduced. I reiterate we must change our habits.

I come from a farming background and believe these issues are being considered in individual silos. Instead, we should consider how food and fuel can be produced in a way that is sustainable and works with the earth. This can be done and consideration should be given to a total resources usage policy that would include the wind, the waves and the soil. I will cite a simple example. A cow that produces milk is also a producer of food, that is, meat. If a single animal is fed in the right way and its nutrition is looked after, one can ensure a reduction in the amount of methane it produces. One dairy company in China is supplied by 2 million cows, which is the same population as the entire herd in Ireland. I do not mean to say this as a criticism but the manner in which they produce milk probably is highly inefficient. They simply pump in food and turn out milk. Ultimately, this will come down to money and were they able to save 20 cent per day on 2 million cows - more could be saved - that equates to €400,000 per day. However, by improving their efficiency like that, they also would reduce significantly the methane emissions from those 2 million animals and every little helps, to borrow a phrase from a retail outlet that has been in the news for other reasons. This is how the subject must be approached. Change will be achieved in small increments and all over the place. I acknowledge that climate changes but as an eminent expert observed at a summit some years ago, if one accepts that mankind is responsible for this and if one compares it with a moving train, slowing down that train to a stop will take 50 years and it will take another 50 years to go back. Members should bear this point in the overall context.

I am glad Deputy Boyd Barrett has returned to the Chamber because I listened with intrigue to his history lesson on the pharaohs, which was fascinating.

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